Great WordPress plugins to enhance your website de

1. PLUGINS FOR
DESIGNERS
by codyL
Saturday, January 29, 2011

2. INTRODUCING
My name is codyL.
I work as a web strategist/designer/internet marketing expert for
businesses. I use WordPress primarily for my CMS of choice.
This is a talk about Plugins for Designers.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

3. DESIGNING WITH
WORDPRESS
Some of the Topics I’d like to touch on:
What are the reasons we design for WordPress?
Focus on making WordPress t your design.
Leverage Plugins effectively for site content and design
enhancement
KEEP IT SIMPLE & STRAIGHT-FORWARD!
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

4. PLUG-INS TO BE COVERED
Some of the Plug-ins we will cover will be:
Contact Form 7
Lightbox 2
Facebook Comments for WordPress
WP e-Commerce Plugin
Tweet Meme Re-Tweet Button
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

5. WHY I DESIGN FOR
WORDPRESS
Simplest answer: Flexibility.
Designing for WordPress goes hand in hand with using Plugins that
help enhance the ability of your content and user-experience.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

6. MAKE WORDPRESS FIT
YOUR DESIGN
Why does every site have to look just like every other
WordPress free theme?
Design your website for it’s most effective impact while pushing
the strength of WordPress and it’s Plugins.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

7. LEVERAGE PLUG-INS
Use Plugins to enhance user-experience.
Design your website with Plugin functionality in mind by
knowing well which Plugins work best for your site’s content and
maximum effect.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

8. COVERING PLUGINS
Now onto Plugins.
We will cover some interesting Plugins that will be simple to
implement and will enhance user-experience.
So let’s take a look at a few design case studies and look at Plugins
in that environment.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

9. DESIGN CASE STUDY
GUSTOCOMPLETE.COM
Saturday, January 29, 2011

10. ESTIMATE FORM
PLUGIN USED:
Contact Form 7
METHOD FOR ENHANCEMENT:
Custom CSS to match design style
OUTCOME:
Correctly styled contact form to work within
design framework to establish consistent user-
experience.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

11. DESIGN CASE STUDY
THOMPSONFUNERALCHAPEL.COM
Saturday, January 29, 2011

12. WEBSITE GALLERY
PLUGIN USED:
Lightbox 2
METHOD:
Easy integration to enhance
image viewing.
OUTCOME:
Ready to use out of the box
formatting allows this Plugin to
work with most designs easily.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

13. DESIGN CASE STUDY
CROSSFITFURY.COM
Saturday, January 29, 2011

14. ARTICLE COMMENTS
PLUGIN USED:
Facebook Comments for
WordPress
METHOD:
Integrating with care into
company’s current Facebook
page.
OUTCOME:
More user interaction and easier
comment posting for community
members.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

15. DESIGN CASE STUDY
WALTSBBQ.COM
Saturday, January 29, 2011

16. SHOPPING CART
PLUGIN USED:
WP e-Commerce Plugin
METHOD:
Shopping Cart for websites with
the need to sell product online.
OUTCOME:
Easy to use and easy to format
Plugin that displays products
clearly and works within current
CSS model.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

17. DESIGN CASE STUDY
VISTA-WEALTH.COM
Saturday, January 29, 2011

18. RE-TWEETING ARTICLES
PLUGIN USED:
Tweet Meme Re-Tweet Button
METHOD:
Using CSS to place social icon in
place of each article.
OUTCOME:
Placing an inline social network
share bar to easily re-distribute
content.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011

19. CONCLUSION
Plugins should be used to enhance and not overcomplicate.
If you can use WordPress to t your design and use plugins to help
enhance content and user experience. Do not over complicate it!
Keep it simple and you’ll be happy.
Props to @andrewryno for his help on development.
codyL.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011